Technical issues delay crime alerts

A “technical issue” last week prevented two crime alerts from being e-mailed to the full student body until a day after the alerts were posted, a spokeswoman for the University said.

The two crimes – reports of a man exposing his genitals to women on campus and an unauthorized access to and burglary in Amsterdam Hall – were posted on the GW Campus Advisories Web site Jan. 28 at 7:08 p.m. and 7:09 p.m., respectively.

The e-mails about the incidents, however, were not sent to the entire e-mail list of students, faculty and staff until about 7:30 p.m. the next day. The Jan. 29 e-mails noted that “this message is being resent, as it may not have been received by all members of the GW community.”

That delay was due to “a technical issue with the mass e-mail database that was resolved quickly,” University spokesperson Michelle Sherrard said in an e-mail. Sherrard said the e-mail was resent “to ensure all GW community members received it.”

The University previously experienced issues with delayed crime alerts in October, when a suspicious package shut down 23rd Street near Fulbright Hall. Though the University posted a notice about the incident on the Campus Advisories site about 45 minutes after the package was reported, the e-mails about the incident reached students about an hour later.